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PBS Kids Movies/Tropes
Acceptable Targets: ** Film critics. The later films had at least one hateful comment directed towards critics. This is to the point where the antagonist in Angelina Ballerina: The Movie is a theater critic who was modeled after . * Ascended Extra: ** Felipe Ortega, a crazy Latino who first appears in Sagwa: The Movie as an Cloud Cuckoolander Almighty Janitor, appeared in many of the banner's movies, as their equivalent to . He traveled from an American city to the city outside the woods where Animal Junction is to Colonial America to hopping on a worldwide circus tour to another American city, all within the course of several films. * A Wild Rapper Appears!: Their movies' soundtracks featured this at times: ** A remix of Stevie Nicks' "Every Day" created as a promo single for Sagwa: The Movie has a rap verse provided by The Beastie Boys, of all people. Mike D stated in an interview that they only did the rap verse because a friend of MCA had a niece who liked Sagwa. ** Too Cuddly's "Dragon Twins" from Zak and Wheezie's Big Circus Adventure, a mostly Retraux psychedelic rock song, is interrupted by Pansauran rapper Arban Feng laying down a few lines. ** Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery has two: *** "I'm Better Than You" has Dongwa and Shing Ying's singing interrupted on the album version by a rap verse about competition and what it means to be a winner performed by an uncredited performer (believed to be either or ). *** Sheegwa's solo song "My Collar (I'm Just Little)", an Award Bait Song for the majority of it, has a rap verse in the middle performed by Dongwa, Ernie, and Theo Lion. * Award Bait Song: ** Stevie Nicks' "Every Day" and Hiro Rocko's "My Friend/Love" from Sagwa: The Movie. ** "Cross That Line" by Stan Bush and Barrage from Redwall: The Movie. ** "My Collar (I'm Just Little)" from Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery, not counting the aforementioned A Wild Rapper Appears! section. * Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: Everywhere in the films, as much of them are based off brainless toddler shows older kids wouldn't be interested in (and unsurprisingly, the majority of these examples were cut from TV airings): ** In the Mix: The Trouble with Young Leaders has a lot of swearing, yet got rated PG. ** Sagwa: The Movie added the words "Darn", "Damn", Dongwa saying "Holy sh**!", Nai-Nai saying "I'll send you to hell!", and references to Chinese folk religion in order to bump the rating up to PG and to get the regular fans of Amy Tan's work to attend screenings. The MPAA PG rating ended up warning for "Cartoon violence and some mild language." Meanwhile, the Republic of Guy gave the film a +13, but only in the original theatrical release, as future releases gave it a +8. ** Dragon Tales: The Search for the 15 Keys had Zak saying "Oh sh**!" as he and Wheezie nearly fall into a ravine. This was added to force families to bring older children who'd either hate Dragon Tales or not be interested in it to screenings of The Search for the 15 Keys, according to Word of God. Despite that, the film wound up being rated PG for "Some mild peril" ** Between the Lions: Share a Story has the farmer in the Click, Clack, Moo segment yelling "Damn it!". The film was still rated G. ** Liberty's Kids: The Movie pumped up the language and violence, and wound up getting rated PG for "Strong violence and mild language - all involving animated interpretations of historical figures". ** Caillou Presents: My Big Movie! has Daddy saying "What the hell?" under his breath, likely to keep the members of the show's infamously rabid Hate Dumb in the theater. The film, like Between the Lions' movie, also remained with a G rating despite that. ** Redwall: The Movie got rated PG for the typical Redwall violence plus a couple of Damns and a single "B***h". Did we also mention that one of the writers went on to write The Hunger Games? ** Arthur's BIG Movie has Mr. Ratburn crossdressing and Slink pulling out a BB gun at one point to bump the rating up to PG. It wound up being rated that for "Extreme sillyness throughout." One wonders if the MPAA were paid to keep those two things a secret, and to insert that stupid description. ** Zoom! into a Musical Mystery has a plot about a ghost causing a huge disaster in Boston with The Power of Rock. It got rated PG for "Fantasy violence and inane humor throughout." ** Cyberchase: The Movie has a single use of the word "Damn" and Inez saying "This is like Hell on earth" and pumps up the violence. It's rated PG for "Fantasy violence." ** Originally, Angelina Ballerina: The Movie (which was rated G) was going have Mrs. Hodgepodge yelling "Damn it!" upon her fence being destroyed. In the final cut, she lets out a Big "NO!" instead. ** Redwall II: Heroes of the Sword kept the pumped-up violence and a PG rating but had less swearing compared to it's predessecor. * Big Budget Beef-Up: Everything the banner put out: ** Sagwa: The Movie crossed live-action with animation and featured celebrities in the cast. * Box Office Bomb: ** The Big Comfy Couch Goes West - Budget, $23 million. Box office, $12 million. The film was able to recoup due to box office earnings in the original show's native Canada, where it earned $26 million. ** Zoboomafoo: Jungle Tracks! - Budget, $6 million. Box office, $2.5 million. ** Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery - Budget, $65 million. Box office, $42 million. Almost everyone involved's careers were able to recover, but the banner ended up being killed off as a result of the failure. * Creator Killer: ** Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery killed the banner off with it's box office bomb status. Some of the other films released under the banner had also bombed (or at least failed) at the box office, however Samuel Goldwyn Films and PBS turned a blind eye to those financial failures. * Christmas Rushed: ** Zoom! into a Musical Mystery. It was filmed and made in about 5 weeks in order to get it out in time for the Halloween season, yet unlike other examples, managed to be somewhat of a minor box office success. ** Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery was also rushed to run along the PBS Kids "Share A Story" campaign. This explains why in one shot of Barney the Dinosaur where he's seen from the back you can clearly see that his mouth is wide open and not moving at all. * Early Installment Weirdness: ** The first movie In the Mix: The Trouble with Young Leaders didn't have the logo, and was mostly filmed on Betacam cameras instead of film stock. It was also part-documentary. * Massive Multiplayer Crossover: ** Zak and Wheezie's Big Circus Adventure states that Dragon Tales and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat are in a Shared Universe due to Nai-Nai and Fu-Fu's supporting roles in the film. As if Nai-Nai saying "There are many, many other Dragon Tales!" in one episode ("The Four Dragons", to boot) of the latter show didn't help. ** Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery and It's Magic!, full stop. * No Budget: ** Zoboomafoo: Jungle Tracks! is this. PBS realized the English-speaking actors for Sagwa: The Movie still had one week left where they were obliged to film for them, so they flew in the Kratt Brothers, Jodie Resther, and Jovian, then flew in John Rad (yes, the same John Rad who directed Dangerous Men), scrounged up $6 million and handed it to Rad, CINAR, the Kratts, and Maryland Public Television and basically went "Make a movie". * Repurposed Pop Song: ** "Jumpin' Kids" from Dongwa's Movie! originated as a English-language version of the Crayon Shin-chan ending theme "Party Join Us", albeit the version used in Dongwa's Movie had most of the Japanese-language samples from Shin-chan dubbed over with dialogue from various PBS Kids shows. also re-recorded some of the lyrics to hide the relation to Shin-chan. * The Shelf of Movie Languishment: After the banner's retirement, a lot of pending films they were planning ended up in release limbo. Among the victims of the downfall were: ** Ernie & Bert's Big Adventure was made in 2004, but never got released until it was quietly put up on the streaming service in 2017. It being made in the early 2000's clearly shows. ** Sheegwa: My Own Journey and The Peking Catrobats on Tour were made at the same time in early 2004, however the failure of Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery got the two's intended 2004 and 2005 release dates canned and the two films' releases delayed. My Own Journey was released straight-to-video in 2005 and Peking Catrobats on Tour was released straight-to-video a year later in 2006. ** They Might Be Giants Get Lost, a concert film covering everybody's favorite alternate rock band performing two concerts in Cookeville, Tennessee (a kids' concert at the Eblen Center hosted by WCTE, and an adults' concert at a local burlesque joint) plus a kids' concert in Fort Wayne, Indiana (at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum), was originally set to be released in March 2005. After Samuel Goldwyn Films and PBS killed the banner off, the film's rights shifted hands to Miramax, who set the film for a August 2005 release. After that didn't come to fruition, the film's rights shifted hands back to TMBG. R.A. Releasing eventually picked up it with a Veterans Day 2006 release to "meh" reviews from critics and mediocre box office results. ** Hamtaro: Little Hamsters, The Biggest Adventure, an English dub of the Hamtaro movie Hamtaro: The Mysterious Ogre's Picture Book Tower (which also used footage from the "Lapis and Lazuli" episode of the Japanese seasons), was planned to be a big summer release for PBS Kids Movies, with a whole new Hamtaro merchandise line planned for it by ShoPro. Then PBS and Samuel Goldwyn killed the banner off, so the two cancelled the release. ShoPro then shelved the film until 2008 when it was quietly released straight-to-video. * He's Back: ** Redwall: The Movie has Slagar the Cruel and his mother Sela brought back from the dead by Urgan Nagru to fight with him. * What Could Have Been: ** Clifford's Really Big Movie was supposed to be released as part of the banner. However Samuel Goldwyn Films and PBS put the film into turnaround midway through post-production. Instead, Warner Bros. picked up the distribution rights to the movie without neither's knowledge, however they turned a blind eye to the release of the film. ** The 2006 film Curious George was planned on to be released under the banner. However Samuel Goldwyn and PBS cancelled the movie following the box office failure of Whodunnit? A Share A Story Musical Mystery and the United States distribution rights handed over to Universal Studios, who was planning on to distribute the film in overseas markets and on home video. * Written by Cast Member: ** Zak and Wheezie's Big Circus Adventure was co-written by Wheezie's voice actress . Category:Tropes Category:PBS Category:PBS Kids